United C.E.O. Offers the Worst Possible Response to the Airline’s P.R. Disaster

On Sunday night, United Airlines ordered several ticketed passengers off a plane after determining that it had overbooked a flight out of Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. One, a 69-year-old doctor, refused to give up his seat, telling an employee, “I have to see patients in the morning.” So airline staff responded by the book: they called security, who forcibly removed the passenger, knocking his head against an armrest before dragging his limp body down the aisle by his arms and legs . Footage of the incident went viral on Facebook. Another video, posted to Twitter, showed the passenger, his face covered in blood, mumbling “just kill me” after apparently returning to the plane.

United, which faced an earlier onslaught of bad press last month when it refused to allow two women to board a flight because they were wearing leggings, responded to the nightmarish scene with a tone-deafness that will go down in corporate P.R. history. “I apologize for having for having to re-accommodate these customers,” United C.E.O. Oscar Munoz said in a statement Monday. The airline said in a statement that it “apologize[d] for the overbook situation” while making zero mention of the fact that a human being had been dragged off one of their planes by the arms and legs. The Chicago Police Department did their part to make things worse by releasing their own statement explaining that the man injured his face when “he fell” onto an armrest.

Like you, I was upset to see and hear about what happened last night aboard United Express Flight 3411 headed from Chicago to Louisville. While the facts and circumstances are still evolving, especially with respect to why this customer defied Chicago Aviation Security Officers the way he did, to give you a clearer picture of what transpired, I’ve included below a recap from the preliminary reports filed by our employees.

As you will read, this situation was unfortunately compounded when one of the passengers we politely asked to deplane refused and it became necessary to contact Chicago Aviation Security Officers to help. Our employees followed established procedures for dealing with situations like this. While I deeply regret this situation arose, I also emphatically stand behind all of you, and I want to commend you for continuing to go above and beyond to ensure we fly right.

I do, however, believe there are lessons we can learn from this experience, and we are taking a close look at the circumstances surrounding this incident. Treating our customers and each other with respect and dignity is at the core of who we are, and we must always remember this no matter how challenging the situation.

Oscar

According to United and Munoz’s telling, this is how everything went down:

On Sunday, April 9, after United Express Flight 3411 was fully boarded, United’s gate agents were approached by crewmembers that were told they needed to board the flight.

We sought volunteers and then followed our involuntary denial of boarding process (including offering up to $1,000 in compensation) and when we approached one of these passengers to explain apologetically that he was being denied boarding, he raised his voice and refused to comply with crew member instructions.

He was approached a few more times after that in order to gain his compliance to come off the aircraft, and each time he refused and became more and more disruptive and belligerent.

Our agents were left with no choice but to call Chicago Aviation Security Officers to assist in removing the customer from the flight. He repeatedly declined to leave.

Chicago Aviation Security Officers were unable to gain his cooperation and physically removed him from the flight as he continued to resist - running back onto the aircraft in defiance of both our crew and security officials.